


Night and Light

by anaturalintrovert



Series: Ni No Kuni Fics [13]
Category: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (Video Game)
Genre: Bonding, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ficlet, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene, Short, hello this is drippy and he is my emotional support fairy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:15:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29808978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaturalintrovert/pseuds/anaturalintrovert
Summary: Drippy doesn’t like being a doll and Oliver doesn’t like being alone. It’s nice that they’re able to meet in the middle and be there for one another but it’s hard to gloss over the fact that life wasn’t always as easy as this.
Relationships: Shizuku | Drippy & Oliver
Series: Ni No Kuni Fics [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1899427
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Night and Light

Drippy didn’t like being a doll for a couple of reasons. There were many things to dislike about it. You always felt stiff, your throat felt dry and fuzzy, and the fabric making up your skin crawled with every draught of wind.

That was just on a surface level though. It went deeper than that, deeper than the fabric and the thread.

Oliver was a very small child when Drippy met him. Drippy had learned how to talk to and comfort children; that was just the nature of his upbringing and life at the Fairygrounds. He would have loved to open up his stitched-together mouth, speak with a tongue that wasn’t made of cotton wool, look at the child with focussed, determined eyes that weren’t just buttons made of wood.

He would have given anything to support Oliver in that moment, whether he would admit that to himself or not.

Oliver loved him anyway. He loved Drippy with everything in his tiny, golden body. Even when Phil teased him, even when Leila insisted that he should try and get used to a life without him, even when Genghis tried to bite at the fairy doll as he carried Drippy around Motorville, Oliver loved and protected that doll. He loved and protected it as though he knew that Drippy would change his life one day.

Drippy appreciated this. Drippy appreciated the company. It got rather lonely sitting on Oliver’s desk. It was a waiting game, a waiting game spanning across many years. Waiting. Waiting until Oliver received his calling to the other world, or broke this curse somehow, or otherwise found himself able to actually converse with him.

The darkness broke Drippy.

The darkness at night was horrible. It broke through the seams and the fibers that formed his body and froze his soul into something dark and solid, something heavy and cold. The icy fingers of despair clutched at him, broke him apart half-heartedly because it had bigger things to attend to. Stronger hearts to break. Come morning the sun thawed his soul but until then life was ice and sewing needles and misery.

Oliver wasn’t afraid of the dark usually. He was tonight. It was one of those nights. Emotions are complex and unexplainable and sometimes Oliver felt like he had to cry.

The two sat afraid in the dark. Drippy wished that he had tears to cry. He wished that the water wasn’t soaked up by the cotton. Shadar had taken his lamp. Shadar had taken his dignity. Shadar had broken the fairy and he was trying to break Oliver.

Drippy couldn’t stand being robbed of his lamp. He couldn’t stand being robbed of Oliver either.

Here’s a not-so-fun fact: Oliver had cried on Drippy before poor Alicia passed away. He had cried about school or petty friendship drama or life in general. He had cried about growing up and growing old. He had cried tears that ranged from frustrated to sad, cried until his eyes were dry, cried until his heart was empty and ready to be filled with gold again.

That night was a night where Oliver cried on Drippy.

It was bittersweet. Comforting, somewhat cathartic, nice to feel emotions after being stuck in the darkness for a few hours. It hurt to see Oliver hurt, but at least he acknowledged the hurt, at least he dealt with the hurt before it became permanent.

It was hindsight that made it sting the most.

Many years later, Drippy knew of Alicia’s death. He was partially glad to not have seen it, mostly regretful to lose an old friend without so much as a goodbye or a pat on the back or just a hug. It had been a long while since Oliver had needed him. Alicia was a good mother, an excellent protector, a wonderful human being that Drippy had been lucky to know. He understood why Oliver didn’t need his company.

He still really wanted limbs made out of something other than string, though. And he really wanted to hug Oliver and tell him that Alicia would be missed. He wanted to tell him that it would be okay.

Wouldn’t you know it, he got the opportunity.

Again, it was bittersweet to see Oliver cry.

He felt the tears, he felt how warm they were, he heard Oliver’s choked pleas for help, he felt Oliver’s hands clutch onto him like his life depended on it. He felt the felt become undone and felt the buttons become ferocious, protective, eager eyes. He felt his legs stumble, he felt himself move by his own accord, tasted the air with a mouth that didn’t feel wooly. He cheered and jumped and celebrated, finally having a voice to do so, finally able to hop about.

Finally with his lamp.

The bitter part of the sweetness came about when Drippy realised that something must have been different about these tears. Something had to be different, different enough to warrant a magical transformation. It took him no time at all to realise the difference.

Tears of sadness and tears of grief were about as comparable as gentle raindrops to a deep black ocean. Oliver’s own misery had been strong enough to create life. That was no small feat. And it was depressing to consider.

But Drippy had his lamp back now. He was the Lord High Lord of the Fairies, for crying out loud! This tearful boy, this miserable and sad and lost child, this wonderful human being with a heart made entirely of gold would be protected at all costs.

Drippy promised himself to help Cry-Baby-Bunting stop crying for good.

Here’s a fun fact, a more fun fact than the last: Drippy is very good at keeping promises.


End file.
